Kenneth Starr Helped Jeffrey Epstein Avoid Federal Prosecution

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr departs his home September 10, 1998, in McLean, VA. The 445-page Starr report on the investigation into the affair between President Clinton and former White House Intern Monica Lewinsky was delivered to Congress Wednesday afternoon.
KHUE BUI/AP

Here’s your QAnon pedophile network boss.

Would you be surprised to know that it’s Kenneth Starr?

Remember: The [radical right-wing] QAnon conspiracy theory [falsely] claims that Democrats are involved in a global cannibalistic pedophile network, and that anti-Trumpers were directly involved in an attempt to destroy the 45th President’s efforts in office because he was onto their game and was rooting them out of “deep state” government bureaucracies and big business. The never-Trump movement began as intra-party opposition by prominent conservative Republicans to prevent him from being nominated, and later morphed.

And it is worth noting, that the pernicious QAnon conspiracy theory has long been discredited by numerous independent individuals, none of whom worked together, and that like many other conspiracy theories – and viruses – continually evolves, ever changing various elements of itself to potentially become as  damaging as possible.

There’s always at least one element of truth in every lie, no matter how far-fetched the lie is, for without it, the entire house of cards falls apart. That’s just how fragile conspiracy theories are. They CANNOT survive independently, and like all parasites, need hosts in order to perpetuate.

Great Saint James (top center) and Little Saint James (lower center) islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands were owned by Jeffrey Epstein.

And in this instance, pedophilia is the solitary bit of truth.

From that single germ, the conspiracy begins to grow. Assertions of the existence of international cartels or networks are built upon the fact that Epstein was known to frequently fly abroad to various nations, and between 1995 and 2013 logged at least 730 flights to and from Teterboro Airport, NJ – a small, general aviation reliever “corporate” airport, just 12 miles from midtown Manhattan, where he maintained a seven-story, including basement, 18,814 square foot residence at 9 East 71st Street, on the posh Upper East Side of Manhattan. The pilots’ flight logs of his travel to and from Teterboro Airport represent only about a third of his total air travel between 1995 and 2013, and consist of thousands of flights. He was arrested at Teterboro Airport July 6, 2019 returning from Paris.

His international travel was facilitated by ownership of several jet aircraft and helicopters, including a Cessna Citation jet, a Gulf Stream jet, and a Boeing 727 jet airliner nicknamed “Lolita Express,” along with two Caribbean islands — the 78-acre Little Saint James, and the larger adjacent 165-acre Great Saint James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands — and was known to host notable guests on the them, among whom are known to have been former U.S. President Bill Clinton, accompanied by his Secret Service agents, because flight itineraries, manifests and passenger lists detail that he flew there as Epstein’s guest at least 26 times.

Jeffrey Epstein, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department booking photo, 27 July 2006, following his indictment for soliciting prostitution.

Other notable personalities who Epstein hosted regularly included such high-profile individuals as Donald Trump, renown Harvard University Professor of Law, emeritus, Alan Dershowitz, the UK’s Prince Andrew, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Larry Summers (who worked in the Clinton administration), Naomi Campbell (a British supermodel), scientist Steven Pinker (dual citizenship Canadian-American & Harvard Professor), Bill Gates, and numerous others.

So again, from those bits of information, comes the [false claim of] involvement of Democrats, and the aspect of international involvement – according to the conspiracy.

The false claims of the conspiracy are further bolstered by the often seemingly-convenient presence of rarefied, often high-profile personalities, whose lives are pseudo-public by virtue of their work. And the fact that little is known of their inner workings as public figures, or about details of their private personal lives, gives further alleged credence to substantiate the conspiracy narrative’s false claims. And details of travel to exotic locales, including international travel, often accompany them all.

And as usual, it’s not surprising that Republicans are promoting the conspiracy.

That’s because the formerly-Grand Old Party specializes in projection, a defensive psychological behavior in which a guilty party projects upon another (accuses them of doing) the very thing which they’re doing.

Great St. James (bottom) and Little St. James (center) Islands, properties linked to financier Jeffrey Epstein, are seen in an aerial view near Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Marco Bello

As well, Republicans thrive upon, and make extensive use of, fear mongering to stir up the passions of their constituents and/or prospective voters/supporters. Fear of loss – whether it’s loss of income, loss of family, loss of health, loss of independence, or loss of any other important aspect of life – is one of many exaggerated half-truths that GOPers use to achieve their objective of broad voter support. For them, it’s merely a means to an end (that the means justifies the end), and it has served them well.

And in this instance, Kenneth Starr — the renown Republican attorney, former Solicitor General, former U.S. Appeals Court Judge, and former lead investigator and Independent Counsel in the Bill-and-Hillary Clinton Whitewater real estate scandal investigation, and later, the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky White House oral sex scandal — is the point man for the defense of accused billionaire pedophile sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, who was known to have procured and engaged in sexual liaisons with underage girls – some of whom were as young as 11 years of age – not only at his Palm Beach, FL villa, but at his two private islands in the USVI for nearly two decades.

So again, while it’s far from conspiratorial to imagine that well-connected, high-profile, and very wealthy individuals would call upon other equally rarefied individuals for help in time of need — after all, they often travel in the same circles — it’s conspiratorial to imagine that there’s any nefarious grand design afoot to perpetuate any wrong-doing, whether alleged, or factual.

---

Though Ken Starr’s role – along with Roy Black and Alan Dershowitz – in securing Jeffrey Epstein’s Federal non-prosecution deal was public knowledge, Miami Herald Journalist Julie K. Brown’s book “Perversion of Justice” details the lengths that he was prepared to go to in order to protect the accused serial sexual predator and pedophile from Federal justice.

Ms. Brown is the solitary journalist credited with blowing open the entire miasmatic mess that was the cover-up of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of female children, and writes in her book which will be published next week, that Kenneth Starr is a “fixer” who “used his political connections in the White House to get the Justice Department to review Epstein’s case.”

A tranche of letters and emails exchanged between Kenneth Starr, and Jay Leftowitz, who was then Jeffrey Epstein’s defense attorney, demonstrate that the two men were “campaigning to pressure the Justice Department to drop the case.” Kenneth Starr had been brought to the “center stage” of Epstein’s legal defense team exclusively because of his connections in Washington, D.C., and to the George W. Bush administration.

The extent of Starr’s involvement in Epstein’s secret sweetheart deal in 2008 that granted him effective immunity from Federal prosecution is all the more stunning, especially given the equally passionate lengths that Starr went to in 1998 to pursue charges against then-President Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice, because the sexual activity which initiated that investigation was consensual sexual conduct between 2 consenting adults.

––––//––––

It was more than slightly uncanny that Kenneth Starr pulled out all the stops after senior officials in the Justice Department had already concluded that Epstein was ready to be prosecuted, and at the very time when Epstein’s lawyers pressure campaign upon the Department of Justice to drop its plans to prosecute Epstein was waning.

Ms. Brown details an 8-page letter which Starr had written to Mark Filip, who had shortly earlier been confirmed as Deputy U.S. Attorney General – the 2nd most powerful prosecutor in the nation. It was coincidental, but advantageous, that Filip and Starr were former colleagues at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, a large, very powerful Washington, D.C. law firm with international offices, and among the world’s most profitable, per equity partner.

Starr’s letter to Filip used “dramatic language” reminiscent of the Starr report, a luridly salacious case built against then-President Clinton which served as the basis for his 1998 impeachment.

Though Starr’s letter to Filip starts off in a friendly tone, and invokes the “finest traditions” of fairness and integrity within the Department of Justice, he quickly changes gears and delivers what author Brown calls a “brutal punch” — he accused of misconduct the Federal prosecutors who were involved in Epstein’s case, and falsely claimed that they were attempting to craft a plea deal with the billionaire which would ultimately benefit their friends.

Ms. Brown also notes that Epstein’s legal defense team also attacked the Lead Prosecutor against Epstein, Marie Villafaña, and similarly falsely claimed that she distorted negotiations in order to benefit a friend of her boyfriend – an allegation which she denied.

Ms. Brown also references an unnamed high-profile prosecutor also linked to Epstein’s case, who characterized Starr’s efforts as “a scorched-earth defense like I had never seen before. Marie broke her back trying to do the right thing, but someone was always telling her to back off.”

In her book, Ms. Brown wrote that the unnamed prosecutor in D.C. was “calling the shots on the case,” and that Lead Federal Prosecutor Villafaña warned her fellow prosecutors that Epstein was most likely still sexually abusing underaged girls, but that the unnamed prosecutor specifically said that “it was clear that she had to find a way to strike a deal because a decision had already been made not to prosecute Epstein.”

The proverbial crack in the armor that provided a pathway for Federal prosecutors to initiate prosecution against Jeffrey Epstein was finally discovered, and was based upon a deliberate failure by Alex Acosta, a Republican, and then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, as lead prosecutor in the Palm Beach case which preceded it all — who cut a plea deal for Epstein that landed him “in jail” (he was given an unprecedented “work release” 12 hours daily to go to his Palm Beach office) for 13 months on two charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor — to keep secret the plea bargain — in direct contravention of Federal Law, the Crime Victims Reparations Act. Consequently, Epstein’s Federal non-prosecution plea bargain was sealed until after it was approved by the judge. By so doing, it prevented any opportunity for Epstein’s victims, or anyone else, from showing up in court and possibly derailing it.

Negotiations between the chief Federal Prosecutor Alex Acosta and Jay Lefkowitz, Lead Defense Attorney for Jeffrey Epstein, had occurred over breakfast October 2007 at the Marriott in West Palm Beach, which resulted in an “extraordinary plea agreement — called a non-prosecution agreement — that would conceal the full extent of Epstein’s crimes and the number of people involved.” That agreement “essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes.”

––––//––––

Starr’s deliberate mishandling of sexual assault scandals has followed him throughout other phases of his career. In 2016 he was stripped of the job of Chancellor of Baylor University after the university failed to take appropriate action over a sexual assault scandal involving 19 football players and at least 17 women.

Four years later, he was a member of Trump’s defense legal team in the then-President’s first impeachment trial over dealings with Ukraine.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/ken-starr-jeffrey-epstein-book